“Right now, Art Toronto is one of the best performing fairs in terms of number of works sold, though not in terms of value,” says Linel Rebenchuk, the founder and director of Art Toronto, which takes place Oct. 26 to 29 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Succeeding in “value” would require an audience that seriously values art, rather than simply a bigger audience and more sales.

“Buying art in Canada is relatively new and is not part of the investment culture,” says Marianne Katzman of Katzman Kamen Gallery in Toronto. “Most Canadians associate art with the Group of Seven and the kinds of art one finds in museums rather than something you can purchase. I’ve found dealing with collectors internationally, especially in America, much more easygoing because it’s really part of their lifestyle.

“Working with Canadians is a slower process because it’s a much bigger deal to them,” she says. “That said, I think this is slowly changing.”

Steven Levy, president of Informa Canada, the company that owns Art Toronto, agrees. “Toronto is still an emerging market for visual art,” he acknowledges. “However, Art Toronto is bringing international credibility to the city by providing a place for world renowned galleries and artists to connect with experienced collectors, curators and art enthusiasts.

“The exhibitions, installations and curated projects featured at Art Toronto each year are starting to push Canadians outside their comfort zones and expose them to cutting edge, contemporary art, which will in turn begin to influence their tastes in the art market,” Levy says.

At this point, “we can’t compete with art fairs like Art Basel or Art Basel Miami Beach,” says Rebenchuk, who founded the fair in 2000.

For example, in 2011, 20,000 visitors attended Art Toronto, buying 800 works for total sales of $15 million. The highest priced work sold was a whopping $500,000.

Sounds like a success.

But Art Basel Miami Beach received 500,000 visitors in 2011, with many works selling for $500,000 and a painting by German master Gerhard Richter going for $2.8 million.

And of course, to add to the challenge, Art Toronto is competing for serious collectors with international fairs.

“Art fairs started becoming important 40 years ago with fairs like Art Basel,” Rebenchuk says.

“There are now literally hundreds of competing art fairs all over the world. . . .

“I just came back from the Frieze Art Fair in London and it is huge, overwhelming,” Rebenchuk, said, “but it is also the kind of fair that is mostly going to appeal to hardcore collectors. Toronto isn’t London and we can’t do exactly the same thing here. We have to limit the number of galleries that participate, to keep the size of the fair manageable, so that we don’t offer more than the market can bear.”

Not all dealers in Toronto are enthusiastic about Art Toronto, partly because participating is an expensive proposition: up to $20,000 for Canadian galleries and more for international galleries, which need to ship and insure works. Galleries have to sell more than twice that amount just to break even.

One well-known dealer who asked to remain anonymous said the fair provides a venue for very conservative, essentially decorative art, which makes it more difficult to sell cutting-edge video and photography.

Other dealers are more philosophical. “If you get one good collector out of the fair, it’s worth it,” Jamie Angell of Angell Gallery said. “It’s not really about the money you make initially but about developing your client base.”

But Robert Birch of Birch Libralato said, “The fair doesn’t really help us develop a client base, since most of the people we meet there end up asking us to remove them from our email list. But it does help us strengthen ties. Most of our clients are extremely busy and have consultants who are not necessarily able to make it to every show, so this is an occasion for us to provide them with a variety of alternatives.”

In the meantime, Art Toronto can be a bonus for the beginner collector and people who simply want an enriching day.

This year’s fair features 130 galleries from 23 countries, with exclusive events and installations as well, such an opening night performance by Canadian artists Tibi Tibi Neuspiel and Geoffrey Pugen, and Taylor Kuffner’s “The Gamelatron,” the world’s first (and only) robotic gamelan (Indonesian) orchestra.

Art Toronto’s theme for 2012, Focus Asia, will include galleries from the length and breadth of both East and South Asia; an exhibition called “Beyond Geography” curated by renowned Chinese curator and editor Zheng Shengtian and independent curator Katherine Don; and talks by important figures like Philip Tinari, the director of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing.

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